Interpreting Spatial Relational Nouns in Japanese
Sumiyo Nishiguchi
Center for International Cooperation in Engineering Education
Graduate School of Advanced Technology and Science
The University of Tokushima
2-1 Minami-josanjima, Tokushima-city, Tokushima 770-8506, Japannishiguchi@cicee.tokushima-u.ac.jp

Abstract. This paper discusses spatial terms in Japanese. Japanese is a languagethat uses common nouns such as ue “on/over/above” and naka “inside” to represent spatial and temporal locations as opposed to languages like English, whichuses prepositions such as on, in, under and between to express spatial locations. Iconsider Japanese common nouns for spatial locations to be relational nouns thatare two-place predicates, one of whose argument slots is filled with the entity represented by the other NP in the NP1 -no NP2 construction. The corpus data [1] suggeststhat spatial nouns are often semantically ambiguous among physical, metaphoricaland temporal locations. Therefore, the ontological information used in the Generative Lexicon (GL) [5] is useful for spatial term disambiguation.

1

Spatial Relational Nouns

This study considers common nouns representing spatial locations to be relational nouns.
While languages like English use prepositions such as in, on, under, or between to represent spatial locations, languages such as Chickasaw in North America use relational
nouns to express locations [2].
(1) chokka’ pakna’house top“the top of the house (the house’s roof)”[2, 4]
Pakna’ is a relational noun meaning “top,” which follows its possessor chokka’ “house.”
1.1

Spatial Relational Nouns in JapaneseJapanese is one such language that expresses locations by using relational nouns like naka
“inside,” ue “on/above,” and shita “under.”(2) a. mune-no mae-de tenohira-o awase (4179)
chest-GEN front-LOC palms-ACC hold“Put your palms together in front of the chest”

1

1 The numbers in round parentheses indicate the sentence IDs of the output of the data in Yahoo!

Chiebukuro section of [1] using ChaKi.NET 1.2β .

b. Sensuikan-no nakat-te kaiteki-desu-ka? (1824)
submarine-GEN inside-TOP comfortable-HON - Q“Is is comfortable inside of the submarine?”
Mae “front” and naka “inside” are relational nouns that do not stand alone semantically. Mae “front” is semantically unsaturated so that it always means something’s front,
as musuko “son” is always someone’s son, e.g., Bill’s son. Mune “chest” is the argument of
the relation represented by mae “front.” Similarly, sensuikan “submarine” is the argumentof the relational noun naka “inside.”
1.2

Non-spatial Relational Nouns

Nouns such as father, friend, and enemy are called relational nouns. Because a father
is a father of someone, a friend is of someone, and so is enemy, they are considered torepresent functions or relations father-of, friend-of, and enemy-of.
[4] points out that it is the relation expressed by the relational noun brother in John’sbrother that the relation between John and his brother inherits, unlike John’s book inwhich book is a common noun so that the relation between John and his book is not
specified—it can mean the book that John owns, wrote or borrowed.
As for Japanese, [3] discusses what he calls unsaturated nouns (hi-howa meishi) suchas shuyaku “hero/heroin” of a play, joshi “boss” of someone which do not become semantically saturated on their own.
I include what [3] calls unsaturated nouns as relational nouns, e.g., kazu “number” insenpuki-no hane-no kazu “the number of the blades of a fan,” namae “name” in (3). Since
common nouns are one place holders—a function from individuals to truth values—these
relational nouns are two-place holders.
(3) a. [[namae “name”]] = λ xλ y[name-of(y)(x)]b. [[shu jinko − no namae “name o f the hero”]] =λ x[name-of(x)(εy.hero(y))]
1.3Japanese Spatial Language as Relational Nouns

This paper further regards common nouns that represent spacial locations to be relational
nouns. For example, naka “inside,” ue “on/above,” and shita “under” are two-place holders, and nouns such as aida “between” which requires another argument are three-placepredicates.
(4) a. [[ue“on/top”]] = λ xλ y[on(y)(x)]b. [V P [[NP kohi-no ue]-ni] [miruku-o] [V ireru]]
coffee-GEN
on-DAT milk-ACC put“put milk on (the surface of) coffee”
c. [[kohi − no ue“on co f f ee”]] = λ x[on(εy.coffee(y))(x)](5) a. [[aida“between”]] = λ xλ yλ z[between(z)(y)(x)]b. [PP [NP [NP ha-to haguki]-no aida]-ni][vP [NP kasu-ga] [V P tamari]] (2908)
teeth-andgum-GEN between-DAT plaques-NOM accumulate“Plaques accumulate between teeth and gum.”c. [[hato haguki − no aida “theplace between teeth and gum”]] =λ x[between(εy.gum(y))(εz.tooth(z))(x)]2

Ambiguity among Physical, Metaphorical and Temporal
Locations

Spatial NounTranslation
Instances Share Physical Direction(Share) Metaphor(Share) Time(Share)
hotoward54
0.338
6(0.111)48(0.889)
naka
in
34
0.213
21(0.618)13(0.382)
aida
between/among10
0.063
6(0.273)1(0.1)
3(0.3)
ue
on
9
0.05
5
12
mae
in front of/before
6
0.037
5
1
shita
under
6
0.038
6(1)
ue-no
top
6
0.038
6(1)
ato
after
4
0.025
4(1)
chikaku
near
4
0.025
4(1)
mawariaround3
0.019
3(1)shita-no
under
2
0.013
2(1)
tonari-no
next to
2
0.013
2(1)
uraback
2
0.012
2(1)
atari
around1
0.006
1(1)ato-noafter
10.0061(1)chokuzen immediately before
10.0061(1)chuo
center
10.0061(1)chushincenter
1
0.006
1(1)
fuchi
edge
10.006
1(1)
gawa
side
1
0.006
1(1)
ge
low
1
0.006
1(1)
hidarigawa to the left side of
1
0.006
1(1)
mannakain the middle of
1
0.006
1(1)
moto
under
1
0.006
1(1)
mukogawa
over
1
0.006
1(1)
omote
surface
1
0.006
1(1)
sayu
to the both sides of
1
0.006
1(1)
soba
beside10.0061(1)sotooutside
1
0.006
1(1)
uragawabackside10.006
1(1)ushirobehind10.0061(1)yokobeside10.006
1(1)
TOTAL
160
175
74
11

Table 1. Distribution of Spatial Nouns among 3083 NP1-no NP2 Occurrences in Yahoo! Chiebukuro portion of [1]Table 1 suggests that Japanese relational nouns are ambiguous between three kinds ofreadings, namely, locational meaning, metaphorical location, and temporal sequence. For
example, the word most frequent ho “toward” is mostly used for comparisons and show
preferences toward the better one as in (6a), rather than being used for physical directions
as in (6b).
(6) a. Chunichi-yori
Hanshin-noho-ga
tsuyoi (2219)
Chunichi Dragons-than Hanshin Tigers-GEN direction-NOM strong“Chunichi Dragons is stronger than Hanshin Tigers”
b. (neko-ga) watashi-no ho-e
ki-masu. (5177)
cat-NOM me-GEN direction-GOAL come-HON“Cats come toward me.”

Mae “front/before,” on the other hand, is ambiguous between physical and temporal
locations, e.g., shuppatsu-no mae “before departure” (4000) and mune-no mae “in frontof the chest” (4179).
On the contrary, ue-no “TOP - GEN” in the ue-no NP construction is unambiguously
used metaphorically. Ato “after” only applies to temporal order while ushiro “back” only
implies literal location. Similarly, ue “top” is used for physical locations in the NP-no ue“on NP” construction. However, abstract nouns cannot use ue but form noun compoundswith a suffix jo “on.”(7) a. netto-jo-deiroiro mite-tara (3508)
internet-on-LOC various watch-then“While surfing on the internet”
b. netto-noue-de iroiro mite-tarainternet-GEN on-LOC various watch-then“While surfing on the internet”(8) a. kohi-noue-ni awadate-ta miruku-o funwari ire-ta
nomimono (6320)
coffee-GEN on-DAT whip-PAST milk-ACC to float put-PAST drink“a drink of coffee with whipped cream floating on it”
b. *kohi-jo-ni
awadate-ta miruku-o funwari ire-ta
nomimonocoffee-on-DAT whip-PAST milk-ACC to float put-PAST drink“a drink of coffee with whipped cream floating on it”

3

Disambiguation of Spatial Language Using Generative Lexicon

The Generative Lexicon (GL) theory [5] is a powerful tool for disambiguation of spatial
terms because it provides richer semantic information to the lexicon. GL incorporates anadditional lexical entry to the meaning of words called the qualia structure—constitutive(part-whole relation), formal (ontological categories, shape, color), telic (purpose), andagentive (origin).
The formal quale in GL contains ontological information. For example in (8a), coffee
is a drink according to its formal quale, and its higher ontological category is a physicalentity, which implies that ue “on” is interpreted physically. Furthermore, feature matching
between relational nouns the other NP is the key to disambiguation of spatial nouns.

References
1. BCCWJ: Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese, BCCWJ2009 edition. The National Institute of Japanese Language (2009)
2. Lillehaugen, B.D., Munro, P.: Prepositions and relational nouns in a typology ofcomponent part locatives (2006), http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/grads/
lillehaugen/LillehaugenMunro2006aho.pdf
3. Nishiyama, Y.: Nihongo Meishiku-no Imiron-to Goyoron: Shijiteki Meishiku-to Hishijiteki
Meishiku. Hitsuji Shobo, Tokyo (2003)
4. Partee, B.H.: Genitives: A case study. In: van Benthem, J., ter Meulen, A. (eds.) Handbook ofLogic and Language, pp. 464–470. Elsevier, Amsterdam (1983, 1997)
5. Pustejovsky, J.: The Generative Lexicon. MIT Press, Cambridge (1995)